


Washed Away

by comicklaus



Category: Fear The Walking Dead - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:15:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28720296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comicklaus/pseuds/comicklaus
Summary: Very rough summary:Story set after the dam's explosion centered around nick and troy hehe
Relationships: Nick Clark & Troy Otto, Nick Clark/Troy Otto
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	1. The dam

POV Troy

The first blast of the hammer was strong enough to force Troy to his knees. An excruciating pain travelled from his temples throughout every inch of his body. With his eyes still pried open, he could make out Nick's silhouette in the distance. He realized there was so much he had left to say to him. But before he could open his mouth, the hammer met his temple a second time. As he fell to the ground, the concrete that welcomed him made sure to knock the air out of his lungs.

Once he laid on the floor unable to move, he slowly began to realize that this was most likely the end. For the second time in his life now, he was engulfed by fear. In that moment, every fiber of his being became utterly and completely fearful of death. His mind fogged up as warm blood and salty tears began to run down his cheeks. Silence overtook him while death began to seep in, slowly eating away at the corners of his body. 

Troy had never before believed that death would one day consume him. And despite the fact that it was closer to him now than ever, he still refused to admit it.

POV Nick

The click of a switch and then... nothing. The world around him went completely silent as the concrete under his feet crumbled away. In the far distance, he could still make out the little boat carrying Victor... his mum... his sister. He saw the water around them grow more violent, as if the tide was attempting to suck in and take over every part of the world they'd been deprived off. 

The dam upon which he stood continued to chip away at his feet. Soon, the water would swallow him up too. He took a deep breath in and gently closed his eyes. After all, he'd always known his life would end and really, this wasn't as bad a way to go. With one final blast, the sound of the water engulfing the world, and the piercing noise of shards of concrete being swallowed whole, returned. 

In the chaos of it all, he couldn't help but think of Troy. Troy, who if he had been here now, would have ran for his life, one hand proudly holding up his gun ahead of him, and his other firmly wrapped around Nick's arm to drag him along. Troy, whose end had been determined by the senseless drum of a hammer. Troy, whose limp body had been swept away by the crashing of the waves strong enough to have been caused by Poseidon himself. Troy... 

The sound of disarray and turmoil overtook Nick once more. But if he listened close enough, he could make out the singing of the birds above him. How they danced in freedom through the sky. How soon, Nick would join them. Calmly, he inhaled the damp air around him, a heavy breath which filled his lungs with the sweetness of life for one last time. 

When you hold on to something for too long, you corrupt it. And finally, he was ready to let go.


	2. Way Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im litt so bad at writing lengthy things all at once so im sry for these short segment mmm also im honestly not too good at writing fics so pls bare w me

POV Troy

As his lungs filled up with water, he feared that soon he'd be heavy enough to sink to the bottom like an insignificant pebble at the deep end of an ocean. But he didn't. No matter how much water he swallowed in, the waves continued to push him upward down the stream that seemed to be without end. His temples still drummed along to the rhythm of his heart and his entire body ached as the cold seeped into his bones. But despite that, he continued to live. As time went on, the current that carried him along began to calm down. Above him, the sun had begun to set, hiding behind the horizon but casting a lingering red shadow as if to remind us it was still there. 

Finally, after what felt like hours, Troy washed up to the edges of the canal. As soon as his back hit the sun-heated cement, an overpowering fatigue overtook him. He could no longer fight the sleep driving its claws into the corners of his brain and gave in. Calmly, and without a thought left in his mind, he slipped into unconsciousness. Troy laid glistering in the dusk evening, his face washed clean from the thick layer of blood. Despite the turmoil he had been put through, he seemed almost at peace. 

Throughout his life, Troy had always felt as if he was drowning. But as he laid in and out of consciousness at the edges of a running river, he had never felt so alive. 

He awoke much later to the blazing sun cutting into his skin like a sharp dagger. His feet were still dipped in the water, and he had already lost one of his shoes to the current. From somewhere above him, he could distinguish the deep groaning and growling of the infected as they pushed themselves toward the gate separating them. 

"Fuck," Troy muttered to himself, having nearly forgotten about the dangers surrounding him at every moment. How incredibly careless he had been to lay here, completely exposed. With whatever remaining energy he could muster, he attempted to push himself upward. As soon as he lifted his head, a burst of pain travelled throughout his entire body. Suddenly everything came back to him. The way Madison had blasted her weapon onto his head, nearly splitting his skull in half. He thought of Nick. How he'd just stood there completely beyond himself. Part of him had expected, or at least hoped for, Nick to scream out in anger and retaliate before Madison could slam down the hammer once more. But he hadn't. No, instead Nick had stood in absolutely silence and watched as Troy limply fell to the floor. Despite how angry that made him feel, he still couldn't help but continue to think of Nick as fondly as he did before. As he tried to push himself upward once more, his mind was occupied with the idea of seeing Nick again which made the pain more bearable to handle. 

If he was going to find Nick, the most obvious place to start looking would be back at the dam, or at least at what was left of it. Before beginning his journey back, Troy bent down to the river to study his own face. The right side of his face was completely bruised and the fresh wound around his temple had started to become infected. It was warm and painful to the touch, but thankfully it had stopped bleeding. Troy gently sank his opened palms into the water and lifted them back up to his mouth. Whereas just yesterday, nearly every fiber of his being seemed to be consumed by water, he had never before been as thirsty as he was now.

With just one shoe, no weapons, and a painful migraine resembling the worst hangover he's ever experienced, Troy began his way back toward the dam.

POV Nick

When Nick closed his eyes seconds before the dam completely gave way, he sincerely believed he would never open them again. So when he awoke to the sun staring right back at him, he was completely caught by surprise. During the night, he had washed up somewhere along the river bank onto a thick and rather comfortable layer of mud. He was surrounded by heavy bush, making it near impossible for anyone - or anything - to reach him. Despite the sun washing over him, his wet clothes were still stuck to his body and they weighed down heavily upon his chest as it heaved up and down. 

He let out a big sigh and lifted his hands to guard his eyes from the blazing sun. It seemed that no matter how hard he tried, life simply refused to let go of him. At times, it almost felt as if life was sewn onto him, tethered to his side everywhere he went. Even when he walked among the dead, the world of the living always pulled him back. No matter how dark and pointless the nights felt, he would wake up the morning breathing. He had been told it was a blessing in disguise, especially in a rotten world like this.

He pushed himself up to face the running river at his feet. Nick couldn't help but smile at the fact that he had single-handedly been behind the replenishment of the earth around him. But then, as fast as his smile had appeared, it vanished. He thought of his mother, of how much he despised here for doing what she'd done. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see it again; the way she'd slammed the hammer down upon Troy's head. He could hear it, too, the sound of her weapon splunging into his flesh, tearing apart his skin as it did. His heart filled up with resentment and he hastily tried to push the image out of his brain.

As Nick had been blessed with a mind forever jumbled by a million things at once, he simply shifted from one bad thought to another. This time he thought of Alicia, how the flick of his finger had triggered the switch that had most likely killed her. Nick had killed her, and the realization behind that destroyed him. On top of the growing anger within his heart, his feelings toward Alicia simply shot a bullet through it, leaving an hole through which blood would forever ooze with every breath he took. His heart ached, and the pain pressed down onto his lungs, making it hard to breathe, and even harder to live. 

With nowhere to go, Nick decided that right here was as good a place as any to be. And so he laid down again. His back sunk into the mud, feeling more comfortable than any mattress he had slept on this past year. As the sun set down again, it cast a beautiful orange light across the evening sky. One which Nick did not see, as he had already closed his eyes again, too tired and beaten down to face the world. 

It was a sky so beautiful that, less than 5 miles away from him, it made Troy stop in his track and look up in absolute admiration.


	3. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again i apologize for this being so short ! but anyway thank u ppl for leaving kudos or comments it means a lot to me :)

TW talk of drug use 

POV Nick

Nick woke up to the deep growling of his stomach. The passage of the river at his feet seemed to have slowed over night. No longer was the water fighting its way forward with an intense turmoil and power. Instead, it had decelerated to a speed resembling the 'lazy river' his mum used to take him and Alicia to during summer vacation. Oh, how longed to be able to drift around on that lazy river once more. The memory was still so clear in his head that he could almost smell the heavy scent of chlorine. He thought back to Alicia and how she'd always try to hold on to Nick's rubber tire so as not to lose him. How Nick, like most annoying brothers, would make that task as difficult as possible to fulfill by continuously trying to pull away from her, a big smile on his face as he did. He thought of his mum too, how she'd sit on the sidelines, always aware of Nick's and Alicia's location. She'd pretend to read or call someone, but in reality her eyes never once left her children.

He reflected back on his dad too... how he wasn't a part of most of these events. In lieu, his dad would spend most of his days inside, cowering away under the thick covers of his duvet as if the world was too much to handle. Back then, Nick didn't understood it yet. At times, he blamed himself for not making his dad's life good enough for him to want to intervene in it. To lessen his guilt, he tried to compensate by telling his dad stories. Every evening, he would enter the small, musky, and darkened room in which his father resided. Most of the time, he'd take along his tiny journal in which he'd written down most of the thoughts that had occurred to him throughout the day. He easily spent hours telling made-up tales about the neighbors dog Watson, or he'd tell all about his rather uneventful day at school. As he grew up, though, Nick began to understand his dad's sentiment toward the world. Not only that, but he started to feel it too. And so one day, he simply stopped coming into his father's room. Alongside that, he quit fabricating tales. Instead, he opted to spend most of his days seeking out something that could provide him with the same sense of comfort as what the dark room provided to his dad. And at the age of 15, he'd found it. Although initially aware and overtly conscious about the destructiveness of his addiction, he quickly grew numb to its grotesque influence on life. Whereas his dad spent most of his days indoors, Nick gravitated toward the outdoors, committing most of his day lingering around the darkest LA alleys. 

His dad had seemed to let go of him and as a result, his mum held on extra tight. Taking after his father however, Nick refused to be held on to and pulled away. And now, after 20 years, Madison had let him go. His mum's suffocating pressure onto his life had finally been lifted. The mere thought of this was enough to relieve the stress off his chest, and after all this time he felt like he could breathe again. 

Feeling slightly more upbeat than the last time he woke up, he decided to take advantage of that fleeting moment and get up. His entire body ached, feeling as if water had sunk into his bones and then frozen up. At least his clothes had dried up though, and he was sure that after a bit of exercise the sun would warm him up again. Now that he had finally gotten himself to stand up, the next step was to think of an ultimate destination. He figured that the dam would be as good as place as any to start. Perhaps he'd be able to find a trace of Walker and Lee. All he had to do was follow the river back, travelling through the heavy bush as he did. He clumsily tried to navigate his way through as best as he could. Despite the scratches that the spiky weeds and poking sticks left on his arm, he couldn't help but be thankful for the safety nature provided. 

He walked for what felt like an hour until the sun was set too high for him to continue. He bent down to his knees and scooped up some water to his mouth. As refreshing a it was, it didn't do a great job at releasing him from the growing hunger in his stomach. If only Troy would be here... he'd know how to hunt. 

As soon as the thought of Troy entered his mind, Nick could swear he saw him staring right back at him from the other side of the river. The sun glistered upon him, covering him up in a soft and gleaming shadow of light. Was this his mind playing tricks on him? Or was it really Troy, alive and well, staring right back at him?


End file.
